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13 November is the birthday of Robert Louis Stevenson, I learned from a post today by Karen at Kaggsysbookishramblings. He was born in Edinburgh in 1850 and died in the Samoan Islands, where he has gone for the sake of his ailing health, in 1894.

At Karen’s suggestion I’d like to celebrate this fine author’s work with an extract from one of the first of his books I read (some years ago): Travels in the Cevennes with a Donkey. It was one of his first works of literature, an account of his 12-day journey in 1878 over some 200 km in this region of south-central rural France. It was published the following year.

This extract is from the chapter ‘In the valley of the Tarn’. He’s been hiking and camping most days – a practice which baffles the local peasants – sleeping without a tent in an early, rather heavy, cumbersome sleeping bag which requires a recalcitrant and headstrong donkey named Modestine to carry it:

Sleep for a long time fled my eyelids; and just as I was beginning to feel quiet stealing over my limbs, and settling densely on my mind, a noise at my head startled me broad awake again, and, I will frankly confess it, brought my heart into my mouth.

It was such a noise as a person would make scratching loudly with a finger-nail; it came from under the knapsack which served me for a pillow, and it was thrice repeated before I had time to sit up and turn about. Nothing was to be seen, nothing more was to be heard, but a few of these mysterious rustlings far and near, and the ceaseless accompaniment of the river and the frogs. I learned next day that the chestnut gardens are infested by rats; rustling, chirping, and scraping were probably all due to these; but the puzzle, for the moment, was insoluble, and I had to compose myself for sleep, as best I could, in wondering uncertainty about my neighbours.

I was wakened in the grey of the morning (Monday, 30th September) by the sound of foot-steps not far off upon the stones, and opening my eyes, I beheld a peasant going by among the chestnuts by a footpath that I had not hitherto observed. He turned his head neither to the right nor to the left, and disappeared in a few strides among the foliage. Here was an escape! But it was plainly more than time to be moving. The peasantry were abroad; scarce less terrible to me in my nondescript position than the soldiers of Captain Poul to an undaunted Camisard. I fed Modestine with what haste I could; but as I was returning to my sack, I saw a man and a boy come down the hillside in a direction crossing mine. They unintelligibly hailed me, and I replied with inarticulate but cheerful sounds, and hurried forward to get into my gaiters.

The Camisards were 18C Protestants who rebelled against the French government; even after their revolt was crushed, the tradition of Protestantism remained strong in the region. Stevenson was fascinated by them, for they reminded him of the Scots Covenanters from the previous century. The reference to Captain Poul concerns a ‘soldier of fortune’ who, Stevenson had written a few pages earlier, captured and killed a renowned Camisard named Séguier (I’m indebted to the notes and Introduction of my OWC edition for these details).